The Atlas has been supported by a wide range of national and local conservation organisations each of whom has made a real difference to the breadth and depth of the project. RTCT would like to record their thanks to:
British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) for offering brilliant advice and lessons learned from the Bird Atlas 2007-11 through the South Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Regional Organisers (John Melling and John Gearing).
BTO also for steering us towards, and helping set up, our BirdTrack account to store all our records as well as providing a full Timed Tetrad Visit data set for our Tetrads from the Bird Atlas 2007-11 to aid our analysis and mapping.
BirdTrack is organised by the BTO for the BTO, RSPB, BirdWatch Ireland, SOC and WOS
Recruiting and supporting volunteers has been key throughout the four years of field work and getting messages out to publicise volunteering opportunities has made a huge difference. Thanks to the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT); Buckinghamshire Bird Club (BBC); Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Environmental Records Centre (BMERC); Oxford Ornithological Society (OOS); Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre (TVERC); and BTO for helping to spread the word.
Many local interest groups have offered opportunities to speak at meetings and events throughout the project and this has helped not only recruit more volunteers but to spread the word of the project and more widely of the importance of the catchment for its birdlife.
The project has been set up and delivered purely on volunteer support to both manage, administer, and deliver. However, getting high quality data mapping and analysis has required funding and RTCT is extremely grateful to the following organisations that have generously offered grants totalling £4,000 to engage professional consultancy support:
- Buckinghamshire Bird Club
- Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Environmental Records Centre
- Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Natural Environment Partnership
- River Thame Conservation Trust
- Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment supported by funding from TVERC
Thanks also to Dan Carpenter from Digital Ecology for his advice and professional expertise in carrying out the analysis, mapping and online presentation of the Atlas.
